In order to monitor a physical or logical element on a network, a certain amount of information must be known about the element, including details about the location of the agent or device upon which the network element is located and information on how to access the agent or device. In addition, further information may be needed as to the specific groups of information to request and which instances of those groups to request. The groups of information may be separated into three categories: agents, access methods and type of device being monitored. In conventional monitoring systems, the three categories of information are included with a listing of the item being monitored by the network monitoring system.